The use of non-fillable stoppers as a means of protecting and ensuring inviolability of the interior of bottles is a widely known field in which innovations appear constantly. Said innovations are a result of the continuing advances in the fraudulent activities relating to the refilling of bottles containing drinks, a practice which must be prevented at all costs.
For this reason there is a great deal of documentation, references and records describing embodiments of non-fillable stoppers, among which it worth mentioning the following Spanish utility models:
U 159124 for a "Bottle closing device". PA1 U 194560 for a "Irreversible axial coupling safety closure for liqueur bottles and other receptacles". PA1 U 250124 for a "Arrangement to prevent fraudulent opening of non-fillable stoppers". PA1 U 289887 for a "Bottle closing device" and patent PA1 PE 8701859 for "Improvements in non-fillable stoppers".
These documents describe different embodiments of non-fillable stoppers, all of them with similar characteristics such as the fact that they comprise a body fitted inside the mouth of the bottle, and that they are provided with a housing in the form of a cage inside which is arranged a plug valve that tends to remain in its seat, closing the liquid outlet opening, when the bottle is upright.
Current non-fillable stoppers have demonstrated their effectiveness, but they no longer manage to prevent entirely improper tampering or the fraudulent refilling of bottles.
These current stoppers offer little protection against access by piercing elements, such as hypodermic needles, nails, etc., which makes it possible to tamper with the plug valve and eliminate its tendency to remain in its seat, thereby allowing access to the interior of the bottle.
Another known fraudulent practice is the insertion of metal pipes or tubes of small diameter at a high temperature such that they easily penetrate the various components, which are normally made of plastic, forming an opening which allows access to the interior of the bottle.
It is also known that the valve and its seat are not one hundred percent watertight, and that said watertightness can be easily overcome, since the valve oscillates and rocks in its seat, allowing access to the interior of the bottles during such rocking motion.
Finally, a common fraudulent practice is to extract entirely the assembly comprising the non-fillable stopper and the means by which it is fitted to the bottle, leaving the neck of the bottle free for fraudulent refilling.
Said practices are known and it is for this reason that non-fillable stoppers have improvements and innovations which tend on the one hand to avoid said undesirable tampering and on the other to improve the conditions of inviolability and make it more difficult to gain access to the interior of the bottles.
It is therefore also important to point out that any non-fillable stopper should provide suitable conditions regarding the inviolability and difficulty of access to the interior of the bottle, without these conditions making it too expensive to realize or difficult to carry out and without having a negative effect on normal pouring actions, in particular regarding the fluidity of pouring.